The Real Truth ABout SIx Pack Abs
March 2nd, 2009 Posted by: John Alvino
Every four years I can’t wait to watch the competitions of the summer Olympics. The performance of each athlete is amazing in itself but another thing I am in awe of is the physique of these athletes-especially in the gymnast’s and their abdominal development.
You might be thinking that all Olympians are born with great abs-but I doubt it. Sure some may have great genes but even the greatest athlete needs to put in a lot of work for a stunning six pack.
Olympic athletes are the epitome of fit bodies so why is it that their training methods are overlooked when we want to learn how to get six pack abs?
All you have to do is start your workout with three back flips everyday–okay, just making sure you’re paying attention. Although we don’t need to do everything a gymnast would do in their daily routine we should examine some of the workout regimine to see what we could bring into our own routines.
I have spent a lot of time at Olympic training centers and have come to realize Olympic gymnasts do not perform typical ab workouts. They do , however, use two direct ab exercises all the time which are:
1. The Hanging Leg Raise: With an overhead grip, grasp a chin bar. Raise your legs up until your shins are almost touching the bar–ensure you initiate movement with your abdominals. Return while controlling the movement until your hips, waist and knees are fully extended. Repeat.
2. The V-Sit Up- Lie down with hands over head and legs extended. At the same time raise legs and torso and reach your hands towards your feet. Return to starting position fully extended on floor.
Olympic gymnasts not only use these direct ab workouts, they also do an immense amount of indirect ab workouts from full body movements which will work the abdominals in the way they are intended to work.
The take home lesson here is simple: we must perform full body movements that require our abs to stabilize our torso. These exercises never involve using a fancy seat, bench or back/chest support. Let me give you 3 examples of exercises that incorporate full body movements, so you can get started right away.
1. Lose the bench press for suspended push ups. Your abs are basically asleep when you lie on your back on a bench but if you switch this up with suspended push ups, the opposite occurs. Suspended push ups work your chest, triceps, shoulders and most importantly the abs.
2. Forget the pulldown for chin ups. Much like when you lie on a bench, when you sit on a pulldown seat your abs don’t work at all. However, when doing a chin up your abs are really fired up!
3. Lose the leg press for tuck jumps. Tuck jumps on their own give you an amazing leg AND ab workout. When you use the leg press it’s much like lying on a bench or sitting at the pulldown seat: your abs are not working. As if that’s not bad enough no support is needed from your abs since the sled is on guiding rods that only allow linear movement.
The great thing about these workouts is that you are really killing two birds with one stone because you’re getting a total body workout while really working your abs. If you follow my suggestions I can guarantee you’ll get ripped abs faster than ever!
